Orwell in 1946 explains why Trump gets so angry when reporters remind him what he said: A totalitarian ruler “has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. … Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, …”
In “The Prevention of Literature,” Orwell speaks of “a liberal historian who believes that the past cannot be altered and that a correct knowledge of history is valuable as a matter of course.”
However, Orwell continues,
From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. Then again, every major change in policy demands a corresponding change of doctrine and a re-evaluation of prominent historical figures. This kind of thing happens everywhere, but is clearly likelier to lead to outright falsification in societies where only one opinion is permissible at any given moment. Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.
Note that the URL is in Russia!
[https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/prevention/english/e_plit]
David Smith in The Guardian:
“For more than three years, [Jonathan] Karl has been on Trump’s trail, even receiving a hug from Kanye West in the Oval Office. He has also witnessed Trump’s war on the media with barbs such as “the enemy of the people” – a phrase which, Karl notes, the Nazis used in 1934. So what message does it send to the rest of the world?”
I think it is deeply disturbing that you have authoritarian leaders around the world who shut down a free press, jail reporters and potentially even worse and do so invoking the words of the American president. So you see Erdoğan and Putin. You see it’s been documented in Kazakhstan and in Egypt. You see authoritarian leaders echoing the precise words of Donald Trump, talking about ‘fake news’ as reporters are thrown in jail.
The other thing that I think is really troubling is when the president calls real news ‘fake news’, when he suggests that the act of being an aggressive reporter is ‘treasonous’, it has undermined the faith in an independent free press among a significant segment of the population.
The revision of the past Orwell often spoke of is one of Trump’s frequent tactics. When Journalist Yamiche Alcindor calls him on contradicting what he previously said, he doesn’t deal with the issue, but calls her “snarky.”
Yamiche Alcindor of PBS NewsHour put the US president’s own words to him. “You’ve said repeatedly that you think that some of the equipment that governors are requesting, they don’t actually need. You said New York might need –”
Trump interrupted twice: “I didn’t say that.” Alcindor stood her ground: “You said it on Sean Hannity’s, Fox News.” Then Trump lied: “I didn’t say – come on. Come on.”
Henry Giroux:
As Orwell often remarked, historical memory is dangerous to authoritarian regimes. In Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, it is a crime to read history against the grain. In fact, history is falsified so as to render it useless both for understanding the conditions that shape the present and for remembering what should never be forgotten. As Orwell makes clear, this is precisely why tyrants consider historical memory dangerous; history can readily be put to use in identifying present-day abuses of power and corruption.
But Trump’s worst enemy is reality, and the fearless thinking which exposes authoritarian efforts to mislead and delude the people.
It is a terrible spot to be in. And history will record him as a monstrous perversion of the aspirations of the Founders.
What will it say about the perfect storm of errors and misguided notions which put him in the White House?
Americans elected today’s Democratic House to demonstrate their disgust with the most corrupt president* in history. The response of the Pelosi-led House is beginning to look like a profile in cowardice.
Brian Beutler, Crooked.com: “Their irresolution has allowed Republicans to drown the public in unanswered lies about what Mueller found and what the response to it should be. … The evasive way House Democrats have responded to the report so far has done Mueller a real disservice.”
The victims of the crimes under investigation, which include the voters
Trump defrauded in 2016, have only one backstop offering them any hope
that justice will be served, and it is House Democrats, who are
determined not to impeach the president under almost any circumstances.
1. “Republicans … drown the public in unanswered lies about what Mueller found”
2. Retaliatory, brazen Republican “counter-investigations”
We are now likelier to witness months of full-throttled counter-investigations—of Mueller himself, and everybody who played a hand in the Russia probe—than we are to get the impeachment inquiry Mueller all but declared we need.
3. “The party leadership’s [cowardly] desperation to avoid a confrontation with Trump has been comically unsubtle”
When Mueller finished his work, House Majority Whip James Clyburn immediately described the Russia investigation as a “closed” chapter, and called on Democrats to turn their attention to “everyday issues.”
4. “Their certainty that holding Trump accountable will backfire politically stems from a combination of bad history and poor reasoning”
Because Democratic candidates campaigned successfully in 2018 on protecting people’s health care, Democrats have convinced themselves that it is Trump’s only vulnerability.
5. We needed “the realization that the Trump presidency is an emergency and that building a check on his power was a matter of historic importance”
6. “Trump has predictably abused his inherent powers to work around the divided government, and Democrats can’t protect people from him by avoiding confrontation”
All they can do is demobilize their supporters by communicating that they don’t actually believe Trump is much of an emergency after all.
7. We act as if the president* is allowed to act as judge in his own behalf by buying into the “view that Trump can end or throttle those investigations if he claims to believe they’re bogus”
8. “The victims of the crimes under investigation … have only one source of hope that the federal law enforcement apparatus won’t ruin their lives to boost Trump’s political prospects, or help him seek revenge, and it is House Democrats, who are determined not to impeach the president under almost any circumstances”
9. The House Democrats “fear that if they do the right thing, they will not do as well in the 2020 elections as they will if they do the wrong thing … we do know that the wrong thing causes real harm to people right now”
10. “Without the threat of penalty, Democrats will proceed under the impression that abdicating their obligations is costless”
11. “We should all demand that they stand and be counted while it’s still an option, and should interpret failure to do so as a profound, collective failure of character”
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